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Question:

I am a teacher, and I want to show a movie to my biology
class to teach them about surviving in the wilderness. Can I just play the movie, if I bring in my
own copy that I already paid for?

Answer:

The Copyright Act of 1976, which governs copyright law in
the United States, indicates that most uses of a purely educational nature in a
classroom would be permissible. There is
not a specific exception for educational use—rather, the provision of the
Copyright Act creating a “fair use” exception mentions classroom activities as
an example of a use that will likely be fair.
However, the Act also states that four factors should be balanced to
decide each situation on its own factual merits.

Section 107 of the Act states the
use of a copyrighted work “for purposes such as . . . teaching (including multiple copies for
classroom use) . . . is not an infringement of copyright.” While in most cases this example may be
sufficient to allow a teacher to use a copyright movie as part of an
educational curriculum in a classroom, the wording of the Act indicates that
uses for teaching are allowed because of the balance of the four factors—which then
indicates that there may be situations where even use in a classroom would not
fall under fair use. It is worth noting
that educational use outside of a classroom (such as posting materials on the
internet) is less likely to be considered fair use, but may still qualify.

While classroom uses of
copyrighted materials that do not have a valid fair use defense to infringement
are rare, they do likely exist (for example, showing a movie for
non-educational purposes or broadcasting students performing a play in their
classroom on a public television channel may not be fair use). If there is any doubt, you should speak to an
intellectual property attorney before putting yourself and your school district
at risk for a lawsuit.